Saturday, October 26, 2013

(I wrote this in 2004, and posted it to the Dead Runners Society list. Why resurrect a zombie post? Because for some insane reason, I'm pondering it again.)

I first met GRRR in 1994, I believe.

I was in St. Louis spending Thanksgiving with the STiLlDeads. I was told that I really needed to go run the Great River Road Run. "Everyone" ran it. I shouldn't miss out.

The GRRR is a 10 mile race. It's 5 miles out, and 5 miles back, on the Great River Road. It's considered very flat. (Not totally, but not, like, Pikes Peak.) It starts in Alton, IL, and the course hugs the Mississippi River on one side, and towering bluffs on the other. The race is run on the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend. This (2004) is it's 45th year.

Back in '94, the STiLlDeads and I had a delightful (for most of us) trail run on Friday, in specatular autumn weather - sunny, mild, light breeze. The next day, however, we had what I can only call devil-spawn of spectatular autumn weather: cold and windy. The combination of frigid temperatures with a "healthy" wind ("healthy" equating to the average age of a heathy adult... say, 30-40 mph) had me looking around for elves and Santa's workshop. Or glaciers calving into the river.

The combination of those picturesque bluffs and the wide Mississippi made the GRRR course a huge wind tunnel. I'm sure the military tests aircraft aerodynamics in that area. Any given year, that wind is either in your face going out, or in your face coming back... and sometimes BOTH.

That first year I ran, I didn't finish due to catastrophic anatomical failures. My extremities froze. I could have sworn that my arms and legs had fallen off, and I was just a torso being tossed about in that wind. It was dismal. Having already finished several marathons, 50Ks and 50mi races that year, DNFing a 10-mile run was unthinkable. But I did it. I'm not proud.

After moving to St. Louis (despite the GRRR fiasco) in '97, I've run the GRRR several more times. I've run a 1:25; I've run in the 1:50s. I've run in sunshine and wind; I've run in a 40-degree rain and wind. I've never had fun. I hate that race. And yet, I keep going back. Every year, I swear I won't go back.

So what did I just do? I signed up for GRRR '04.

(Note to jim p.: THIS is stupid. Running the Pikes Peak Ascent once and swearing to never do it again isn't stupid. That's called "learning from your mistakes." What I just did can only be defined as stupid. I know better. And yet I do it anyway. Stupid. Stupide. Estúpido. Dumm.)

There is one redeeming factor: Lunch at Fast Eddie's Bon Air post-race. Everyone goes. It's a biker bar by
day (and night), but yet Fast Eddie's is overrun with, uh, runners each Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend. I spend my time during GRRR calculating how many 29-cent peel n' eat shrimp I can get for the $5, $10 or $20 bill in my pocket. If it's a good race, I order 18. If it's a bad race (usually), I order several dozen. I eat shrimp until the inside of my nose feels like it's been scraped out with an Exacto knife, from all the horseradish in the cocktail sauce.

Sure, I could just run from home that morning and then meet everyone at Fast Eddie's for shrimp. But that just seems like cheating. I have to earn those shrimp, one freakin' mile at a time.

So come the Saturday after Thanksgiving, think of us all out there fighting the wind next to the wild Mississippi River, searching for the meaning of life and relationships out on the Great River Road.

Saturday, April 27, 2013

... or at least, the spirits of camels! After a month of knitting, this is finally done: a blanket made of camel down. The pattern and yarn were my February shipment of the Bare Naked Knitspot yarn club, wherein we receive undyed and unique fibers of all types. February was camel! And the yarn came via the Snow Leopard Trust, spun by women in Mongolia. You can buy your own here: Snow Leopard Trust.

I bartered for an extra skein and added a repeat on for more width. Unblocked, it is 36" wide x 48" long. I love it. Unfortunately, so does one of the cats... I can't keep her off it. I love that the color changes remind me that several camels contributed to this effort.

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

We may fall, but we get right back up again. We know what it is to hurt, and to keep going in spite of it. Just when we think we can't take another step, we cover another mile. And we do not give up. Ever.

Last Saturday I joined a number of people in St. Louis in a run to remember the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing, and show our support for their healing. The St. Louis Unity Run for Boston was an impromptu event, but even with the short lead time, our local running community rose to the occasion. There were t-shirts for sale (with proceeds going to The One Fund), 'race' numbers, water, and participation by many of the running clubs and shops around the metro area. It was great to see the turnout. The course was rumored to be somewhere between 2-3 miles, but I did a 1-mile warm-up, then peeled away from the group a bit past half way to do a full loop of the park. Total for the day: around 6.5 miles. I'd pledged to cover at least 26.2 mi for the week, and ended up with 29.1 mi for the week.

Sunday, March 10, 2013

That's really the only good thing I can say about it. :-) As of Friday, from the Fleet Feet STL photos, there was still a lot of snow on the trail. And then it rained. And rained. And rained.

On the best of days, this trail is challenging... narrow single-track with a lot of roots and rocks, and not a whole lot of flat going on. Some pretty decent long hills, actually, including some gnarly sections where you watch your feet or end up 100 yards down the face of a steep hill.

Today? What wasn't ankle-deep mud was ankle-deep running water. COLD water. And that was just the regular parts of the trail... any dip, depression, or hollow ended up as a cold mini-pond to wade through. And then there were the real stream crossings. A few were up to my knees, but the two main crossings were thigh-high on me. I felt sorry for anyone shorter. The first had a rope across (very necessary with the current); the second desperately needed one. There were a bunch of people there, though, so we formed a human chain. I just grabbed a hand and jumped in.

I was SO ready for it to be over. When I reached the out-and-back near the end, my Garmin read 12.56 miles... at the finish line, it was 13.56 miles. Not quite the day I'd opt for bonus distance, but what the heck. I think my finish time was 4:33:something... I've run a number of FULL marathons faster than that. Eh, whaddya gonna do. I paid for the privilege of being out there, and I got my finisher medal.

My feet finally thawed out, too.

Anyway... obligatory I'm-so-damn-glad-I'm-done photo:

Didn't flip my pack around back again... klassy.

And, my feet UNDER my socks... socks, shoes and gloves were all pitched. At least my feet were numb most of the time and I never felt much of that.

If I have my totals right, that gives me a total of 1013.39 miles running and walking; 48.1 miles on the EMD, and 5 miles rowed. I did want to have over 1200 miles for the year, but lost a few months while I was trying to get the loss of endurance thing figured out. (Stupid BP meds. Stupid EIA.)

About Me

I’m an atheist (with Buddhist tendencies) ex-marathon-running, kayak-building, dog-wrangling IT project manager who knits, spins, and dyes stuff to relax. I also pick up antique spinning wheels now and then, and try to get them working again. Needless to say, I don’t get a whole lot done very quickly…